


The Understanding

by starraya



Category: World on Fire - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: After the Christmas blitz in 1940, Robina’s  life changes irrevocably.
Relationships: Robina Chase/ Douglas Bennett
Comments: 33
Kudos: 51





	1. December 1940

There is one simple reason why she and Douglas are spending more time together. The children. They share a granddaughter and Jan is fond of Douglas. Robina notices the way Jan’s face lights up whenever Douglas visits. For a moment, it is as if Jan has never known darkness. Douglas and Jan play football together in Robina’s garden every Sunday. Robina has become accustomed to pausing, only briefly, by the window to make sure they're not getting into too much trouble. She sips a cup of tea and mourns for her flowerbeds. 

On the afternoon of the 22nd of December, Douglas visits to discuss the matter of Christmas day. 

“What matter?” Robina says. 

“Well, since your boy’s . . .” Douglas says. He takes great gulps of tea. Robina cannot fathom why he always has to drink like that, finishing his tea within a few minutes.

“Missing in Action. You can say it,” she replies, setting her cup of tea down on the table as if to encourage Douglas to do the same and slow down his drinking. “The three words won’t kill Harry or magically bring him home.”

“Yes, and since we’re, well, family in a way,” he says.

Robina tenses at the word family, what a horribly intimate word to use. Douglas does not see Robina’s expression change, however. His eyes are concentrated on the pot of tea on the table between them as he tries to get his words out.

“I wondered if Jan – and you – would like to have Christmas dinner with us. Me, Lois and the baby, that is.” 

Robina folds her hands in her lap, unfolds them. “I’ve already brought food, I’m afraid. But you can call around afterwards, if you like. I know Jan would like that. I fear he’s grown tired of my company.”

“Where is he?”

“Moping. We had a disagreement. I sent him to his room.”

“Probably for the best.” 

“I thought you believed in a light touch with children.”

“I do. He’s likely tired. Children get restless and irritable when they’re tired.”

“I see.” Jan still has nightmares, Robina remembers, they might keep him up for hours.

“I’ll go up and see he wants a kick around, if that’s okay?”

Robina nods. Douglas finds Jan sleeping and returns downstairs. Robina expects him to immediately leave. Instead, he asks her for another cup of tea. 

  
-

  
Robina doesn’t believe her friendship with Douglas goes beyond their granddaughter and Jan. There are many things she doesn’t believe in: self-indulgence, self-pity, overt displays of emotion, dependency on anyone but one’s self. She believes in simply getting on with things in an efficient manner. She does not believe in sparing more words than necessary in a conversation or frivolously wasting time on a game of chess when it is not for Jan’s benefit. And yet here she is, playing a game of chess with Douglas and winning. A little part of her is enjoying it. 

  
-

  
The sky glows orange. The sound of the Luftwaffe overhead is deafening. Robina hurries across the street. There is a great whistle behind her, a burst of heat against her back and then the roughness of the road against her cheek. She loses consciousness. She doesn’t know how long for. When she comes around, she can still hear the bombs falling. She thinks of Jan. She wonders if he is out there on the streets, amongst the smoke and dust. 

  
A searing pain runs across her back. She cannot move. All she can do is cough and guess the scale of her injuries. Like everyone else, she’s heard the stories. People get caught in the blasts and sometimes whole limbs get torn off, but they don’t realise the loss, they don’t feel it until they look down and see a leg missing. 

  
She knows she would rather be dead than lame. 

  
-

  
The next day, Robina wakes up in hospital. She asks the first nurse she sees if they have admitted a Polish boy. The answer is no. She feels a pang of guilt. Some of the children from Jan’s school have been evacuated to the safety of the countryside. Yesterday morning, Jan asked her if he was going to be sent away too. He started to cry. She told him not to act so foolish, when she hadn’t even given him an answer yet. 

  
“I will not go,” he replied and turned to run off. He knocked a vase off the table beside him, one that had been in the Chase family for generations. Even though Robina knew the breakage was an accident, anger overcame her and she banished Jan to his room. He fell asleep, Douglas visited and left and Robina didn’t look into Jan’s room for another hour.

  
She found Jan’s room empty. The whole house was empty. He must have run away, terrified of being sent away again to another stranger’s house, miles away from everything he knew. Robina had gone out into the streets to search for him. Then the air raid siren had rang.

  
\- 

  
“Are you her husband?” The nurse at the door asks in a brisk tone. She looks exhausted. Half of Manchester is in ruins and the number of deaths increases by the hour. 

“No, I’m not her husband.” Douglas replies, stepping from one foot to the other, unable to keep still.

“Then sorry sir, the only men permitted on this ward are husbands.” The nurse turns back inside the building. 

“Wait,” Douglas says. "Please will you give her a message. Will you tell her that Jan is alive, he’s alive and safe and I’ll look after him at my place for the time being.”

On his bicycle ride home, he cannot help but replay last night in his mind. After the double wave of bombing, the worst the city had seen, there had been rubble and bodies everywhere. He remembers seeing Robina. It felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of him all at once.


	2. December 1940 - January 1941

Hospital stays are an extraordinarily mortifying ordeal, Robina thinks. At least when she gave birth to Harry the doctor visited her in the privacy of her own home. Over the years, Robina learnt to block out the memory of Harry’s birth, the hours of agony and humiliation, but she can’t help but recall it, now she’s in a similar situation.

On Christmas day, of all days, she’s trapped in bed, unable to lie on her back or sit up properly so she can’t fully see the swarm of staff and patients around her, but they can see her. See her like this, small and weak. Her hair is a mess, her face is bare and she tries not to think about the number of people that have worn this gown before her. 

Hitler is yet to succeed in invading Britain, but she feels like a country invaded. All those foreign hands on her, removing her clothes, washing her, cleaning, dressing and redressing her wounds and prodding her with needles. In their decades of marriage, she doesn’t think Harold saw as much of her as the nurses and doctors here.

  
\- 

Robina escapes from the hospital as quickly as she can. A light flurry of snow is falling when she knocks on the door of Douglas’s house. Her make-up and hair is immaculate. Her clothes are ironed to perfection. For the first time in her life, she is wearing trousers instead of a skirt. Not a free choice, by any means, but a practical one. The fabric hides her bad leg. The pain is infuriating and Robina wants to go home as soon as possible. Frustration wells up in her the longer it takes Douglas to answer the door. When he does, he looks surprised.

“You’re out of hospital,” he says.

“Evidently,” she replies. “I’ve come to take Jan home. Thank you . . . for looking after him in my absence.”

Douglas looks at the cane in her right hand. “Would you like to come in?”

“Could you fetch him for me? I have a driver waiting for us.”

“Sure.” He goes back inside the house and tells Jan to gather up his things, before returning to the door. “He’s scared you’re mad at him, for running off like that before Christmas.”

“Did you have a good Christmas?”

“As well as we could. We were both concerned.”

Robina looks impatiently back at the driver in the car she has hired to take her and Jan home. “Over what?”

Before Douglas can answer, Jan appears at the door beside him with a suitcase. 

“Ready?” Robina asks Jan.

Jan nods. He hugs Douglas goodbye. “Sunday?” He asks. 

Douglas looks to Robina for an answer. After Robina agrees that Douglas can visit Sunday, saying that it will be good for them to return to a normal routine, Jan walks to the cab parked opposite the house with a smile. Robina turns to join him, but she isn’t used to walking with the cane. She stumbles and nearly loses her balance. 

Douglas reaches for her. She flinches from his touch. “Don’t you touch me,” she says. The words fly out of her mouth, sharp as a knife and louder than she intended. She can feel people across the street staring at her and her cheeks flush with embarrassment. 

-

“It’s gone,” Jan says disappointed when he looks out the window the next day. The snow had started to stick, but it had disappeared overnight. Robina is glad. She dislikes snow. She finds it a nuisance. 

Before Jan goes to school, she makes sure he wears the new jumper she brought him for Christmas. She brought him a set of new clothes. He is quickly growing out of his clothes and, as he is under her guardianship, she can’t have him appear anything less than perfectly presentable at school. Jan is just about to leave for school when there is a knock on the door.

Robina asks Jan to get the door. He is confused. He has never been asked to get the door before. “You are the man of the house now,” she tells him.

She is sat sideways on the sofa, left leg outstretched. She moves to sit back up properly, smooths down the creases in her trousers with her hands.

The moment Douglas appears in front of her Robina starts to calculate how to get him to leave. It is not Sunday, like they agreed.

Douglas has a cake tin in his hands. “I brought you some fruitcake,” he explains, "since you missed Christmas dinner and, well, Christmas pudding.” He places the cake tin down on the table. “Me and Lois baked it.”

Robina’s eyebrows arch up. “You bake?”

“When I can. I find it calming. I was going to bring you some snowdrops. They’re lovely this time of year, but then Jan reminded me that you already have a bed of them in your garden.”

Robina struggles to process all this information in one go. Douglas and Jan spent time discussing whether Douglas should give her snowdrops or fruitcake? The thought reminds Robina of Jan’s presence in the corner of the room. His eyes are fixed on the cake tin. He looks very excited. But Robina isn’t in the mood for cake. 

She senses that Douglas didn’t just come around to bring her cake.

She tells Jan to hurry off to school or he will be late and he leaves. She tells Douglas that he might as well sit if he is going to stay.

“It was a terrible night, what happened,” he says. “I saw –”

Robina cuts him off. “I don’t remember much of it,” she lies. 

“About yesterday . . . It’s okay,” Douglas continues, “I know a lot of shell-shocked men who have similar reactions whenever . . .”

“I’m not shellshocked, Douglas.” Robina’s voice is tight with astonishment. “And I’m certainly not in any way similar to your friends in the lunatic asylum. I am not in any way like you.”

Douglas’s reaction is immediate, a cold look washes over his face and he draws into himself. Robina knew he would. She picked her words carefully. 

“Now, please leave,” Robina says. 

And he does, without another word. 

  
-

  
Robina does not look forward to the night-time. The stairs are difficult. The climb makes the pain in her leg deepen. The doctor had removed the worst pieces of shrapnel from the back of her left leg. They can shoot as fast as bullets, he had said. It was fortunate none had entered her head. She was fortunate. Fortunate?

The bruises and cuts have moderately healed, but Robina knows her leg will remain a trouble for the rest of her life. Then there is her back. Robina catches sight of herself in the mirror when she undresses. Burn scars, she thinks, are the unsightliest scars of them all, before she gets into bed and drifts off into a restless sleep. 


	3. January 1941

Two days later, Sunday arrives. Robina has a feeling that Douglas will still visit, despite their last abrupt parting – he will not risk disappointing Jan – but Robina doesn’t want to have to navigate any awkwardness. So, on Sunday morning, she sends Jan to Douglas’s house. You will have to walk, she tells Jan. He will also have to leave Douglas’s at three. On the dot. It falls dark quickly and she wants him back before all the light goes. 

She gives him a Christmas card to take with him. 

On the envelope, she has written The Bennetts in tightly looped letters. She wrote the card out several weeks ago, but never gave it to Douglas, even when he visited three days before Christmas. She had already given him a Christmas card for Lois and the baby with some money in. Just because Harry was missing didn’t mean she could stop fulfilling the many responsibilities he had left behind for her to oversee.

The second card she wrote to the Bennetts was a social gesture, not a financial one. Because that’s what people did when they knew people. They wrote them Christmas cards. Even people – Harold’s many brothers and sisters for instance – that you despise and haven’t seen for years. And she saw Douglas every week. So, she had written a card for the Bennetts, but never sent it. 

Until now. She only sends it now because it's starting to clutter up the drawer in the Welsh dresser. 

  
-

  
Jan is late home. It is nearly dark. Robina is stood at the window, waiting for him to walk up to the driveway. When Douglas and Jan appear outside, just after dark, Robina sighs. She opens the door and looks immediately at Jan.

“You’re late,” she says. “You may as well go and wash for supper. Go on.” 

Jan scampers off. 

“It was my fault. We lost track of time,” Douglas explains. “I thought I’d better walk him home, what with it getting dark. It’s a long way to walk to my house and back.”

Robina does not care for the tone of criticism in Douglas’s voice. “Although he might be growing very quickly of late, Jan is still not quite of the age to drive yet,” she says. 

Douglas looks at Robina’s car, parked to the left of him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Robina can see something forming in his mind, as if he is about to ask her something or reveal something to her, either way he’s about to start some sort of speech. She’s grown to recognise the look. 

“Do you want to come in for a minute?” She says, placing emphasis on the word minute. 

When they sit down opposite each other, Douglas’s voice is soft, barely there. “I came to thank you for the Christmas card." He reaches in his satchel. "And to give you one back. I meant to give it you before Christmas, but then . . .” He trails off and hands her the card. It bears a single word: Robina. His handwriting is neater than she expected. Unbeknownst to her, it is the fourth card Douglas wrote out to her and the only one that survived the bin. 

She places the card gently beside her on the sofa. She takes a deep breath. 

“I fear I behaved rather rudely before. I didn’t thank you for the fruitcake. So, um, thank you.”

“Have you eaten it?”

“Not yet.” She hears Jan’s footsteps clattering down the stairs. “Much to Jan’s disappointment," she adds. "He also has a growing appetite.”

At that moment, Jan enters the room, no doubt having heard the mention of cake. He took a suspiciously short amount of time to wash. Robina beckons him over to her and inspects his hands, but his fingernails are clean. “How would you like to try the fruitcake this Sunday?”

Jan grins. 

Robina turns to Douglas. “And of course, you must join us. I’m yet to discern if you plan on poisoning me and therefore I must see you take the first bite.”

Later, when Robina shows Douglas out he lingers in the doorway, putting his cap on slowly. “About Jan walking to school. Which is fine. I walked to school myself. But it can feel a long way in the winter and I reckon there’s going to be more snow soon. I have my eye on this bike. It needs some fixing but –”

“I will buy him a bike.” Robina says a bit too quickly, a bit too defensively. She is still capable of purchasing a bike. 

“I’m only trying to help.”

“I'm sure you are.” Robina’s voice softens slightly. “A bike is good idea.”

“See you Sunday?"

“See you.”

After he leaves, Robina opens the card. It doesn’t say anything out of the ordinary, to, from, Merry Christmas, but the picture on the front makes her chuckle. It is a picture of a robin. Robina also means ‘bright fame’, but she appreciates that notion is harder to capture on a Christmas card. Her fingers trace the red feathers of the bird. She is looking forward to Sunday. 

She remembers the game of chess she had played with Douglas before Christmas. She had told him that Jan didn’t want to be evacuated and that’s why they had argued.

“You can understand why,” Douglas had said. “Do you want him to go?”

“He’ll be safer, certainly,” Robina said. Unfortunately, often what needed to be done had to supersede one's own personal wishes. 

“If he did go, I’d miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“Coming here.”

  
-

  
When Robina wakes up the following Sunday, she feels better than she has in a long time. The pills have taken the edge off the pain in her leg and despite what Douglas predicted, there hasn’t been any snow yet. The days are still cold, but not freezing. She stands by the window overlooking her driveway and watches the sunlight dance on the faces of Douglas and Jan. Douglas is teaching Jan how to ride his new bike. Jan is a quick learner. Robina feels a sense of pride as Jan rides smoothly for the first time without Douglas holding him. When Robina calls them in for tea and Jan puts his bike away in the garage, Douglas tells her that he’s sure Jan would happily ride all day and night if he could. 

“He’s growing into a smashing lad,” Douglas says.

Robina nods in agreement. “Amazingly. Despite my guardianship.” 

“Because,” Douglas corrects her. “I’d give yourself some credit. Harry dropped a boy you didn’t know on your doorstep and you took in him and you gave him a home.”

Douglas’s look is so earnest, so honest, Robina can’t bear it and she turns away, leading him inside. “Shall we?” 

  
-

  
Robina gives Jan the first slice of fruitcake. The boy devours it. Robina cuts Douglas a slice and then a small one for herself. She eats slowly, precisely, cutting off little triangles with a knife and fork. Between bites, a tiny crumb sticks to her bottom lip. Douglas tries not to stare, but he has never been good at pulling his gaze away from her scarlet lips. The lipstick complements her mulberry trouser suit. When Robina had stood up to turn on the lamps, Douglas noted how even her brown brogues have a shade of red in them. She is always in heels. Douglas wonders if is difficult to walk with a cane with heels.

As the light outside dims and the lamplight grows brighter, he swears he can see the colour of her eyes changing. Their clear, icy blue – the colour that always reminds him of the cold, bracing sea he dived into as a child when on holiday in Devon – is darkening. Douglas wonders what her colour her eyes would like in near darkness, without the artificial light of lamps, just the naturalness of moonlight. 

“You look a hundred miles away, Douglas,” Robina says, quietly so as not to startle him. He might be thinking about Tom, where he is, if he’s okay and Robina knows from experience there is no benefit to dwelling long on those kinds of thoughts. At Robina's words, Douglas snaps back to reality.

“Just anxious about your verdict,” he says.

Robina sets down her knife and fork. “Passable,” she says, with a smile that is at odds with the mediocrity of the word. 

Jan asks Robina for another slice and Robina allows him a half of a slice. 

“How are Lois and the baby?” Robina asks Douglas. Lois left Manchester after the heavy bombing in December. 

“Not quite settling into country life. She’s too much of a city girl at heart. But with the baby still so small, she knows it was a good decision.” 

“She’s a sensible girl.” 

“I’ve no doubt she’ll find a way to start singing again somehow before spring starts. That’s in her blood too, but she certainly doesn’t get it from me. Do you sing when you play the piano?”

Robina has never talked about the grand piano in her house to Douglas. “How did you know the piano isn’t Harry’s or wasn’t my husband’s?”

“Lucky guess.”

“No, I don’t play anymore. I haven’t since . . .” Robina places the cake tin lid on top of the cake and hands Jan the plate. “Jan, will you take this back into the pantry.” He does and Douglas thinks Robina is drawing the evening to a close, starting to mark out his cue to leave. 

“I can’t visit, next Sunday,” he remembers to tell her. 

“Oh?” Robina intends the sound to come out light and inquisitive, but she feels a pang of disappointment. Douglas has never missed a Sunday on his own accord. She was either in hospital or she had sent Jan round to his house. 

“It’s my wife’s birthday. I always go to the cemetery on her birthday,” Douglas says.

“Of course.” Robina says. Her voice is full of understanding, but the only time she has ever visited her husband’s grave was when she buried him.

“I’ll visit the week after.”

“You could visit on Saturday, as an alternative, if you wanted.”

“Sure, yeah.”

“More tea?” 

“Please.”

She pours him a cup. She is just about to ask Douglas if he would like to stay for a game of chess, with Jan of course, but she’s prepared to give him a few pointers, so that Jan doesn’t beat him quite so spectacularly again.

Before she can say anything, the air raid siren rings. 


	4. January 1941 - February 1941

Robina’s hand trembles. She spills the tea. For a moment, all she can do is hold on to the teacup and teapot and watch the puddle of tea on the table grow larger and larger as her heart beats quicker and quicker.

Jan runs into the room, confusion on his face. It is six o’clock. The Germans have never attacked so early. He looks at Robina for guidance on what to do, but she has a strange, distant look on her face.

“It’s a test siren,” Douglas tells them both. He remembers the poster on the village noticeboard. “It’s be over soon.” He stands up. “I’ll get a cloth. Where –”

“On the side, in the kitchen,” Robina says. Normally, she would never allow a guest in the house to fetch anything, but she is glad when Douglas disappears into the kitchen and takes Jan with him. It gives her a moment to collect herself. Her heart feels as if it has been yanked out of place. Even when the siren stops, she struggles to steady her breathing.

When Douglas returns, he starts wiping up the tea. Robina feels a peculiar possessiveness over the spilt tea. She snatches the cloth from Douglas’s hands. Their fingers brush briefly. An odd sensation, that does nothing to settle Robina’s heart.

“What shelter do you and Jan go to?” Douglas asks.

“Miss Wilson and Miss Browning’s, at the end of the street,” Robina replies. She wipes the table, but one cloth is not enough to soak all the tea up. “They have a large cellar. All the street go.”

“Have you had any more thought about a shelter for you and Jan in the garden?”

Last year, when everyone started preparing for the bombs, Douglas had offered to help build an Anderson shelter in Robina’s garden. Robina senses he is about to make the same offer.

“Miss Wilson and Miss Browning’s house really isn’t that far away.” She reaches for her cane and gets up to retrieve another cloth.

  
-

  
After Douglas leaves, Robina feels on edge for hours. All night she waits for the siren to ring again, for real, she waits for the bombs to whistle, for the ground to shake, for the skies to blaze, but the siren does not ring. She waits again for the siren the next day. The longer the silence stretches on the more convinced she will it be broken.

On Tuesday night, she wakes up in a sweat. She dreamt she had been walking through the blackout, searching for Jan again, but she could not find him and then, even though she knew Harry was somewhere in Europe, likely dead, she had seen Harry in the distance. She had shouted his name, but he never turned around to face her.

Robina sits up in bed and presses her hand to her sternum. Her skin is burning hot. She hears footsteps outside her bedroom door.

“Jan? Are you okay?”

Jan mumbles a yes. She tells Jan to go back to sleep. It is late and he has school tomorrow. She hears Jan’s footsteps retreat. A little laugh escapes her mouth. It was she, not Jan that cried out from a nightmare this time. War certainly turns things upside down. Whether one likes it or not.

  
-

  
On Thursday, the snow starts falling lightly, almost mockingly, Robina thinks, because it is evident to everyone that more will fall. The sky is full of clouds and the air is freezing. By Saturday morning every rooftop and road is covered thickly with snow. The cold has started to seep into her bones and make the pain in her leg worse. When there is a knock on the door, she folds up the blanket she had put across her knees and puts out of sight – it is an ugly blanket - before she tells Jan to open the door to Douglas. Douglas’s cap and scarf are wet with snow.

“I thought the weather would keep you away,” Robina says when he enters the living room. The snow is still falling outside.

“I’ve travelled through much worse,” he says, smiling. “I thought perhaps me and Jan could build a snowman. Would you like that, son?”

“Yes,” Jan grins.

“Go wrap up warmly then,” Robina tells him and Jan hurries off. “You look happy, Douglas.” He has a similar expression on his face to the one when he arrived at Robina’s house, brimming with pride, to tell her that their granddaughter had been born.

“I err . . . had a letter.” His voice is reticent. Without Jan the room suddenly feels very quiet and he notices how tired Robina looks. He feels as if he is disturbing her.

“A letter from?” Robina prompts.

“From my boy. He’s well. He’s got leave soon.”

“That’s good news. We should have some more cake.”

“I just didn’t want to go on about it, you know . . . what with your boy . . . well it’s bad form, I know what’s it’s like when you’ve lost someone and you see other people having a good time and it just makes you feel worse, not that I think he’s lost, Harry, that is, I meant –”

“Would you like some gloves?” Robina interrupts him, looking pointedly at his bare hands. “I have an old pair of my husband’s somewhere.”

“I always manage to forget them,” Douglas chuckles. “Lois used to tell me off.”

Robina tells Douglas that the tea is still hot in the pot on the table if he would like some and goes to fetch the gloves. When she walks up the stairs, pain shoots through her leg and she winces, but she does not pause, afraid Douglas might be watching. This is the first visit where he has not offered to help her with something and she would like to keep it that way.

  
-

  
As Douglas and Jan make a snowman together, Jan asks him when they can visit Gregor again. Robina occasionally writes to the hospital for news of Jan’s brother. She didn’t want to, initially, but Douglas told her that the doctors were more likely to tell her the news and he reassured her that he would read the letters if she liked. Gregor’s condition is still the same.

Douglas promises Jan that they will visit when Gregor is well again.

“What if he doesn’t get better?” Jan asks, putting stone eyes on the snowman.

“I did.” Douglas says. “Sometimes it can take a lot of time, though.” Douglas stands back to look at the finished snowman. “Now I believe Robina mentioned the word cake earlier.”

  
-

  
When they take off their coats in the hall, Douglas looks into the living room and gestures to Jan to keep quiet. Robina is asleep in the armchair in front of the fireplace. She looks younger asleep, Douglas thinks. She looks more like the girl in the photo album Robina had given Jan to help him practice his English. She has since started reading parts of the newspaper to Jan, small, carefully selected parts. She stil cuts out parts of the newspaper that might upset Jan. Not much of the newspaper is left these days after the censorship. Jan still likes to look back at the photo album regularly and he’s shown the photos Douglas a couple of times. Jan has developed a great fondness for the photographs, for a family that he has never met but one in which where he can name every member, for a family that will always be there, just as he remembered, whenever he opens the album.

Douglas asks Jan if he would like to get the album and Jan disappears upstairs. Douglas hesitates to step into the room where Robina sleeps. He does not want to wake her. When he sees her start to stir, he retreats to the hallway and pretends as if he has only just entered the house.

Robina gives him a small smile when she sees him. 

Douglas smiles back. “Cake?”

As he cuts the cake, he realises he’s falling in love with Robina Chase.

  
-

  
Douglas visits again Tuesday afternoon. Jan lets him in. “I forgot to give you the gloves back,” Douglas tells Robina.

“Oh, you can keep them.” Robina’s brow furrows. The snow is still falling. Douglas didn’t come all this way in this weather to give her back a pair of dead man’s gloves.

“They’ve closed the schools," he says.

“Yes,” Robina says. Surely, Douglas knows that this is not news to her.

Douglas opens his satchel. “I brought you some scones.”

“More baked goods? Are you afraid I’m starving Jan?”

“Last time it snowed like this, it lasted for five weeks. If you ever needed, you know, someone to get you groceries or maybe . . .”

Something flashes in Robina’s eyes. She was just about to take some medication before Douglas interrupted and she is exhausted from a night of no sleep. She snaps. “I am not an invalid Douglas.”

“I never said you were Robina.”

She scoffs. She’s seen the way he looks at her. The pity. She thanks him for the scones and bids him goodnight.

  
-

  
“She’s your fancy woman, isn’t she?” Tom says, sat at the breakfast table at the Bennetts house, devouring a plate os scrambled eggs. He has been back home for three days and he is happily consuming half of Douglas’s weekly rations. “She’s got to be. That’s your best shirt you’ve got on. Not to mention that you’re going outside after a blizzard to meet her.”

“Robina and I are friends, Tom.” Douglas puts on his coat. The snow is easing, but it is still extremely cold. “And I go every Sunday, for Jan,” he tells his son. “It’s important for the boy to have constancy. He’s a good lad. I’d like you to meet him.”

“I’m good here, thanks. In the warmth and dry.”

“One day, I meant.”

“You mean you probably want me to supervise him whilst you and your lady – ”

“That’s enough,” Douglas says firmly.

-

  
When he arrives at Robina’s house, Douglas wonders if he should have come. Robina might turn him away again, like she did Tuesday. He only knocks on the door a few times before Jan opens it and lets him in. Douglas starts to speak. “I know I’m earlier than usual –”

“Something’s wrong,” Jan says.

“Where’s Robina?” Douglas asks.

“In bed.” The boy looks scared.

“Have you gone up and knocked on her door?” Jan nods. “But she turned you away?”

“She’s sick.”

“How sick?” Before Jan can answer, Douglas is already climbing the stairs. 


	5. February 1941

Douglas finds Robina curled up on her bed in her nightgown. She looks pale and feverish. The second thing he sees is the bottle of pills on her bedside table. Douglas tells Jan to go and get a glass of water. Douglas starts asking her questions, when did she take the pills, how many, but the feeling of nausea has given way to drowsiness and it is an effort for Robina to focus on his words. Her replies are slow and laborious. She closes her eyes. Her whole body feels weak. 

Jan appears at the door with a glass of water and it is the sound of Douglas telling Jan to go and wait downstairs, the reminder that Jan is here, that makes Robina attempt to sit up. Her head feels fuzzy and heavy, like there is a shifting weight inside her brain, rolling back and forth, pulling her off balance, dragging her down to a place where she just wants to lie down and sleep. 

-

  
Robina sits against the headboard and takes small, frequent sips of water. She feels steadier, but she doesn’t yet trust herself to stand up. Douglas is sat opposite her in the chair by her vanity table, watching her. 

“Tell me,” Robina says to him, “do you make a habit of inviting yourself into women’s bedrooms?” Douglas smiles. Her strange and sharp sense of humour remains unchanged. Robina puts the glass down on her bedside table. “Where is Jan?” 

“In his room. He’s okay, but you didn’t half scare him to death,” Douglas says. “What were you thinking?” His tone is soft, but Robina can’t help but find an accusatory note in it. 

“I wasn’t thinking _anything_.” She hadn’t slept all night, again. She was in pain, again, with her leg. She took some medication. Too much. She made a mistake.“It was an accident, Douglas.” She has had enough of him looking at her, being in her room and she asks him to leave. 

-

  
She thought getting dressed would make her feel better, more in control. It doesn’t. She loathes the idea that Douglas thinks the morphine overdose wasn’t an accident, that he could possibly believe she would succumb to that sort of weakness, but that’s what she must have looked like when he found her, weak. 

When she goes downstairs, Douglas is in the kitchen with Jan. There is a pile of warm, buttered toast on the table.

“Could I have a word, Douglas, in private?” Robina asks. As she leads him into the living room, Douglas tells her that Jan made the toast for her. The boy is glad she’s okay. 

Robina had meant to address Douglas confidently, to assure him that her illness had been an unfortunate and unforeseen event, an event that had now passed, but Douglas’s words disarm her. The idea that Jan has been concerned for her strikes her in the heart. 

Douglas sits down on the sofa, but she stays standing. Her voice comes out high and strained. “Do you really think I’d do that to Jan, to a young boy, drug myself to death and let him find my body?” Her throat feels tight and her eyes start to water. “I found my husband. He was in the bathtub and it was not a pretty sight. Men are messier than women when they kill themselves, did you know that? More violent. Because that’s what men do. They make mess and they leave women to clean it up.” 

A tear slips down Robina’s cheek. 

It hurts Douglas to see her so hurt. He struggles with what to say. “I do understand . . . I have friends, men from my regiment that also took –”

“Then you know what it does to families.” Anger courses through Robina when she thinks of her husband’s selfishness, the way he abandoned her and Harry. She clutches the side of the sofa. "You're going to tell me that men who take their own lives are in incredible pain, that they see it as their only escape and I know that, but death doesn't make the pain disappear. It simply transfers it to other people." 

Robina inhales deeply. Why on earth is she telling Douglas all this? Furious at herself, she wipes away her tears. “I should get back to Jan.”

  
-

Later, when Jan is still outside searching for stones to put on his snowman and Douglas has come inside for a respite from the cold and a cup of tea, Robina apologises to Douglas.

“I’m sorry that you lost friends the way you did,” Robina says, passing him the bowl of sugar cubes. She knows he has a sweet tooth. 

“I am too.” Douglas puts four cubes in his tea. 

Robina studies him. Despite the snow, he had visited this morning. He had visited Tuesday as well, trekked all the way through a storm to bring her some scones. She had been embarrassed and if there was any emotion she truly despised, it was embarrassment. She had been embarrassed earlier, as well, that he had seen her in her nightgown with no make-up on and her hair still in a net. It seems, whenever she is around Douglas, she always has to fight the instinct to recoil from him.

But he never seems to recoil from her. He never seems repulsed. A few months ago, when she didn’t know him so well, she would have attributed his inability to be easily shocked to his class. The working class generally lack an awareness of refinement and proprietary. Now, Robina realises that she has not given Douglas enough credit for his past experiences. Douglas isn’t shocked easily because he has seen countless men injured by war. Injured in body and mind. Robina still doesn’t like the idea that he might see her as similar to those men and never will, but she has to admit to herself, after today, that she is unwell. 

Why else would she suddenly spill out the details of her husband’s death? Details she has never discussed with anyone but the police. 

Unlike Harold, Douglas survived. He battled through.He took Jan to see Gregor in the hospital, something Robina could never face herself. Douglas is stronger than her in that respect. 

“Are you okay?” Douglas’s voice draws her out of her thoughts. He is looking at her in that way again, right through her, the way that makes her skin burn. But this time she doesn’t recoil. She takes a deep breath.

“I can still hear the bombs from last year, even during the day,” she confesses to him. “Is that what it was like for you, after France? All the shells ricocheting around in your head?"

“Yes,” Douglas says. "In a sense." 

“I suppose that’s what it was like for Harold too.” 

“Sometimes all you can think about are the memories. You can’t concentrate. You can’t sleep. And when you do sleep . . . Lavender oil helps, by the way. The scent can make you feel calmer.” 

There is a non-judgemental tone in his voice and a knowing expression on his face. Robina knows there is no point in denying her struggle with sleep. 

“It can get better,” Douglas reassures her. “It will get better. This weather, the short days, they make it worse. But there are ways to manage.” 

Their conversation is cut short when Jan comes in, tugging off his hat with a loud sigh. It has begun to rain, a thick, heavy downpour that will wash away the snow in a couple of days. The last snow of the year. Jan is upset that his snowman will disappear, but he is quickly distracted when Robina asks if he would like to play cards with her and Douglas. Jan has never played a game with them both at the same time before. Even though Robina knows that Douglas is used to walking through all kinds of weather, she insists that he stay for a while, until the rain eases.

The simple truth is she doesn’t want him to leave. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N.B. Please excuse the likely complete lack of medical accuracy. I did a bit of research, but I have only taken overdoses of anti-depressants and paracetamol so I was drawing on past experiences. I thought about how long ago Robina had lost her husband and settled on 1929 or 1930 during the depression.


	6. March 1941 - April 1941

Douglas continues to visit every Sunday and he is right, things do get better. Out of necessity, Robina gets used to the cane. She becomes familiar with the pain in her leg, what makes it worse, what eases it. She even takes the odd bath infused with lavender oil. Sleep is still a difficulty, arriving in broken pieces most nights, but she knows it will arrive, eventually. Whilst she waits, she reads. She is halfway through To the Lighthouse when the first daffodils bloom. At the beginning of March, an excited Jan carries something into the house. Jan is followed by a nervous-looking Douglas.

When Robina sees the gold and white ball of fluff in Jan’s arms she is aghast. She will not allow a filthy stray in her house. “No, no, no,” she says. “Take it back out.”

“It’s a she,” Douglas corrects her. He and Jan found the King Charles Spaniel shivering at the back of a bombsite with only a sheet of newspaper for a blanket.

“Please can we keep her?” Jan pleads.

“She probably already has an owner,” Robina says. 

“She doesn’t have a collar,” Douglas says, “but she seems trained. I reckon her owners abandoned or they might have, you know . . . in the bombings.” Douglas strokes the dog’s ears. The dog lifts her head up, leans into the touch. Her eyes are brown and wide and shining and they look directly at Robina. 

“Please,” Jan asks again.

Robina purses her lips, contemplates her decision. “You may bathe and feed the dog, Jan, but we are not keeping her, understood?”

Jan’s face lights up. “Thank you!” He wastes not time in carrying the dog up to the bathroom.

“Douglas, would you mind going after him and making sure he doesn’t make too much of a mess?”

  
\- 

  
The following Sunday, when Douglas visits, he finds Robina sat on the sofa with a sleeping dog nestled in her lap. Robina hasn’t moved for half an hour. She doesn’t want to wake Goldie. 

Douglas chuckles at the sight. “She likes you a lot.”

“That’s because she knows I buy the food,” Robina says. 

Goldie stirs. She jumps down off Robina’s lap and stretches.

“Or she just likes you,” Douglas says. 

-

Each time Douglas visits Robina tells him something about Goldie. Robina’s voice is always a mixture of feigned annoyance and growing affection.

“You know she’s ever so fussy with meat, but if she catches the smell of toast she goes completely mad. And she’s taken to following me around after Jan’s gone to bed. She keeps pawing at my door.”

Soon, Robina gives in. She lets Goldie into her bedroom, finds a warm blanket and puts it on the floor. She keeps her voice firm and authoritative. “This is your bed. Now sit on it.”

Goldie blinks at her a few times, before jumping onto Robina’s bed and sitting down right in the middle of the mattress. Robina sighs, but she is incapable of feeling any anger towards the dog. Goldie reminds her of a dog she had when she was a child. She can’t remember the name of the dog or even the breed, but she can remember trying not to cry when her father sent her away to boarding school, away from the dog. Already, at the age of seven, Robina Chase knew that crying over a dog wasn’t something that respectable people did. She never saw the dog again. Maybe it died, or her family sold it.

“Alright,” Robina says to Goldie, willing to compromise. “You can stay, but at the end of the bed.”

Now, Goldie sleeps every night at the end of Robina’s bed. By morning, especially if the night had been a cold one, Goldie is often curled up against Robina’s side, gently snoring and radiating warmth.

  
-

Douglas’s visits aren’t just limited to Saturdays. On Wednesday the 23rd of April he cycles straight from work to Robina’s house. By now, Robina is accustomed to him turning up out of the blue and without hesitation she lets into the hallway. Douglas smells the familiar smell of tea and polish, but also a new scent: lavender. 

He forgets what he was going to say and simply remarks on how lovely the evening is.

Robina agrees. The air is still warm and the sky still light. It’s good weather for Douglas and Jan to play football. “I’m afraid however,” Robina informs Douglas, “that you’ll have to bear my company for a while. Jan has developed a penchant for leaving his homework to the last minute and I’ve told him that he must finish it before he does anything else.”

“If my mother had done the same, I might have done better at school. I bet you always did your homework,” Douglas says.

“It was that or a ruler to the palm,” Robina says.

Douglas winces. “I remember that quite clearly.” 

“It’s the definition of weak leadership, is it not? If a person in authority can’t discipline a far younger and less-developed person without resorting to unnecessary violence?”

“Certainly.” 

Robina Chase continues to surprise Douglas. 

  
\- 

  
Robina invites Douglas to sit in the garden with her. Goldie joins them, happily jumping up on to a spare garden chair and lying down to soak up the sun. After his second cup of tea, Douglas can no longer hold in the good news he received this morning in Tom’s letter. 

“My lad’s getting married,” Douglas says with a wide smile. 

Robina sets down her cup of tea. She is happy for Douglas. “Is he? When?” 

“July. He only meet the girl last month, but I suppose you can’t blame him for wanting to tie the knot quickly. Everyone did in the last war.” 

“Harry did it in this war.” Robina’s tone is light and jovial, but Douglas catches a flicker of sadness in her eyes. 

“Still no news?”

Robina’s eyes fall to her hands and she straightens the bracelet on her left wrist. “There are a couple of other woman at Bridge Club who have a son missing. They say they know, they can feel it, whether he’s dead or alive. But I can’t.” 

A sparrow swoops over the garden and Robina turns her head. Douglas notices how the movement makes the sunlight fall differently on her face, makes certain strands of her hair appear lighter. 

Robina spots the newly-bloomed primroses in the corner of the garden. Douglas follows her gaze and when Robina makes the mistake of admitting that primroses are her favourite flowers, Douglas insists – with Robina’s permission – on cutting some for her to put in a vase. She allows it. 

“Douglas!” Jan shouts, running into the garden. He hugs Douglas, then makes a beeline for the football, desperate to play after finishing his schoolwork.

Jan’s appearance gives Douglas the courage to ask Robina a question.

“Would you and Jan like to come to Tom’s wedding? Tom’s said the more the merrier and Jan might enjoy it.” 

Douglas expects Robina to say no, but she says yes.

-

  
The next time Douglas sees Jan, to take him to see Gregor in the mental hospital, Jan asks him if girls like flowers.

“Why do you ask that, son?”

  
\- 

  
“What on earth happened?” Robina marches into Douglas’s house a couple of days later, jaw clenched. She doesn’t give him a chance to answer her question. “Jan’s distraught. I know Gregor’s his brother, but if the visits are going to effect Jan in this way then I’m afraid I simply can’t let them continue.” 

“It’s not Gregor,” Douglas quickly reassures her.

“No?”

“No. Jan’s lovesick. He’s got a crush on a girl in his class. He keeps asking for my advice, but I’m not sure it’s any good.”

Robina’s mouth drops open. She doesn’t know what to say. How is she meant to talk to Jan about this?

Douglas offers her tea. 

“Well,” Robina remarks, after having had time to collect her thoughts, “at least he won’t be down for long. First love doesn’t last long.”

“I married mine,” Douglas says. His wife was his first love. 

“A rare man,” Robina says. It sounds almost like a compliment. 

  
-

  
When Robina returns home, she notices that more primroses are missing from her garden. They now belong to the girl Jan likes at school.


	7. May 1941 - June 1941

The end of spring brings more sunshine. Robina feels content, as content as one can feel during wartime. Maybe content is too a strong word. At the very least, she feels like she has adjusted to a new kind of normal. She has sold her car and read a sizeable amount of Virginia Woolf’s published works. Goldie continues to follow her everywhere and she and Douglas have started to sit out in the garden more frequently. Sometimes, they listen to the wireless. Only the songs, never the news. There is an unspoken agreement between them to turn it off if the news comes on. They both pretend it is purely for Jan’s sake and not that news of the war would mire the pleasantness of their Sunday afternoons together. After Douglas leaves, Robina often catches herself humming a song she heard on the radio as she gets ready for bed.

She has not discussed Jan’s crush with him, still clueless on how to approach the issue. However, his mood has improved so hopefully the situation is going well for him. He’s also made friends with another boy at school and sometimes goes outside to play with him. Robina is glad. Jan needs to mix with young blood, not be stifled by having her and Douglas as his only companions.

Today, the three of them are going out for something to eat at a particularly nice tearoom. A treat, for Jan, Robina tells herself but she is pleased to go out. She has spent too much time in her house since Christmas. She puts on her best red trouser suit with a matching hat. Even Douglas dresses smarter than usual. The atmosphere is considerably less tense than it was last year when Robina asked Douglas to have tea with her to discuss Harry and Lois’s baby. Robina actually eats the sandwich she ordered, for one.

Douglas brings along his family photo album to show Jan. Jan pores over every image as Douglas tells him the history behind it. Robina learns a great deal. Douglas grew up in a family of seven, whereas she had been an only child. His parents and grandparents had worked in the cotton mills. Douglas left school at twelve and worked as a carpenter for a while. Then the war broke out. There is a photo of three men in uniform. Three brothers. Douglas had been the only one to survive.

There is also a photo of Douglas’s wife, Mavis. She has a bright, seemingly carefree smile and a mountain of blonde curls. She died five years ago from TB. “She kept everything together,” Douglas tells Jan. He struggled to hold down a job for several years after the war. Mavis was the one who kept them fed with the money from her job at the factory. Mavis was the one who got Tom and Lois ready for school and cooked them tea when they got home on the days when Douglas couldn’t get out of bed. 

Douglas, of course, only tells Jan a condensed version of the past, but Robina gets the sense Mavis was a very strong woman, strong enough to raise two young children, work and look after a shellshocked husband. Robina knows the past is difficult to talk about for Douglas – she is able to see what Jan cannot, the regret, the guilt, the pain that hides beneath photographs of a dead spouse - but she still thinks it did Douglas some good to talk.

They walk back to Robina’s house slowly, side by side. The sun is hot on their backs. Jan runs in front of them. Every now and then he spots a dead dandelion amongst the grass and plucks it free, before blowing the seeds loose and trying to catch them as they drift away. Robina is about to ask Douglas if he would like to go out again sometime when the attack happens.

A group of boys come round the corner, shout ‘coward’ and lob something. A mixture of flour and egg yolk and feathers splatter Douglas’s shirt. Robina recognises the perpetrator as one of Jan’s bullies from that wretched school. She marches towards the boy and terror forms in his eyes as he remembers the old woman who had lectured him outside school, accusing him of siding with Hitler.

“He’s a coward,” the boy tries to justify his actions. “My brother’s just lost his legs fighting Hitler and that man spends his days selling a stupid paper.”

Even though she has never meet him, Robina can hear the sound of the boy’s father in his words.

“That man fought in the trenches of France. He witnessed horrors you cannot begin to imagine. And I pray, young man, that it stays that way ad this war ends before you are conscripted. Now go home and find something useful do with your time.”

He scampers off.

“What a frivolous waste of rations,” Robina remarks to Douglas when she returns to his side. “You’d think people would have more sense wouldn’t you?”

Douglas is quiet for the remainder of the walk. When they get back, Douglas apologises to Robina. “I’m sorry,” he says, “you know, if I embarrassed you.”

Despite what just happened Robina thinks she is still winning in terms of embarrassing situations, with Douglas finding her in bed after a drug overdose at the top of the list.

She asks him if he would like to borrow a clean shirt. He can’t cycle home looking like that.

-

_Three weeks later._

As he rides his bike, Douglas struggles to hold back tears. The bright, hot Jun sun stings his eyes and the tears would almost be a welcome relief if not for their cause. He had received the news this morning that his nephew, John, had died trying to defend Crete against the Germans. John was only 20. Douglas’s grief turns anger. In war, young lads are simply seen as expendable chess pieces.

When he arrives at Robina’s house, he sees that Robina’s eyes are red as if she has also been crying.

“The institution rang me,” she tells him as soon as she sees him. Her voice wavers, fragile and nervous. Douglas remembers when Robina had asked him around last year after she had learnt that Jan’s brother was in a mental institution. She hadn’t known who else to ask for guidance.

“Gregor is being released,” Robina explains. “He wants Jan to live with him. With immediate effect.”

“I suppose there was always a chance of this happening,” Douglas says, slowly taking in the news.

“I know that,” Robina says, a little too sharply. She takes a seat and her voice softens. “It’s just come as a shock. Did Gregor give you any indication he was planning this last time you visited?”

”No. Gregor has been getting better, but no.” Douglas sits down too, opposite Robina. “You don’t want Gregor to take Jan?”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about Jan. He’s already gone through so much upheaval in his short life and it’s about whether Gregor is well enough to provide the stability he needs. And of course, this affects you too. If Gregor wants to take Jan far away, there’ll be no more visits. Not that I was giving the privilege of being told where or when Gregor will take Jan.”

Douglas knows that Robina has grown to love Jan, considerably, even though she would never admit it. 

“I can go to the institution now and talk to Gregor, if you like,” Douglas offers. “Find out exactly what’s going on?”

Robina nods. “Thank you.” She smiles weakly. “I’d offer to drive you, but . . .”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Douglas promises.

-

He doesn’t return until late evening. As soon as Robina sees his bike through the window, she impatiently goes to meet him at the front of the house. It is the longest day of the year, so the sky is still blue, the air still humid and the sun still warm on her face and bare arms.

“What’s the verdict?” She asks, nervously. As she plays with the pendant of her earring, Douglas notices the light freckles that have appeared on her arm.

“Gregor is well-enough to be discharged,” Douglas says, “however being well enough to start looking after yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll well enough to look after a child.”

“Did you tell him this?”

“We had a discussion. And Gregor agreed that more frequent visits was probably the best to step to take for now. He asked me if Jan’s happy here, and I said yes, but he’d like to visit, to meet you.”

“I’m sure we can arrange that,” Robina immediately agrees, overwhelmed with relief to be told Jan will stay with her a little longer. She can’t hide her smile. “Would you like a bite to eat after your travels?”

But Douglas doesn’t accept her offer. He pauses. For a moment, both of them stand opposite each other, near the threshold of the house, looking at each other, not talking. The sun is starting to set. Soon it will disappear from this side of the house, leaving shadow and coolness in its wake.

Douglas takes a deep breath. “I need to tell you something. I got the news this morning that my nephew died.”

“Douglas, I’m so sorry,” she says it with true sorrow, but, for a second, she worries because he looks as if he is about to cry. She has never known how to behave around other adults when they cry. She never knows what to say. How to give the griever comfort. She knows she would fall short.

“He was a great lad,” Douglas adds. “But that isn’t what I wanted to say . . . The thing is, I’m not getting any older and there’s a war going on and no one knows what’s going to happen . . . and I reckon if you do know things, then its important to say them whilst you still have the chance.”

With each of Douglas’s words, Robina feels more confusion. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

“This morning you said that if Jan did go to live with Gregor, that I wouldn’t visit anymore, that I wouldn’t want to visit anymore, but I . . . I don’t just visit for Jan.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that you have a particularly fondness for my tea,” Robina tries to joke, but her voice is shaky.

“I like you,” Douglas admits.

Robina’s throat feels dry. “In what way?”

“In the I’d-like-to-kiss-you way.”

“Oh.”

“Can I kiss you?”

He is looking at her in that way again, that earnest and honest way, that way that gets under her skin. Suddenly, the look takes on a hundred new meanings. Robina’s heart hammers inside her chest. She can’t think clearly, can’t deliberate over the consequences as she would do forany other momentous decision, so she answers from instinct. “Yes . . . on the cheek.”

He presses a kiss to her cheek, drawing their bodies closer together then they have ever been, before stepping back to look at her. His eyes fall quickly to her lips.

“I . . .” Robina says, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She turns and retreats back inside her house, leaving Douglas alone on the doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s three chapters left and so if there’s anything you’d like to read, I’m open to prompts :)


	8. July 1941

After several days of careful thinking, Robina knocks on Douglas’s door with one intention: to set the record straight between them. 

She clears her throat. “We need to talk after . . .” 

“After you did a flit,” Douglas ever so helpfully finishes for her.

Well, you gave me quite a shock, Robina wants to defend herself, but she has written a script in her head and she plans to stick to it. 

“Look, Douglas,” she says, “what happened last week. I think we should nip it in the bud.”

“You don’t feel the same way?” Douglas asks. 

Robina almost sighs. She had predicted that Douglas would want to start talking about feelings and emotions, so she cuts to the heart of her message. “It won’t work,” she tells Douglas plainly. 

“Why not?” He asks. 

“Because we’re different people.”

“Because I drive buses and you haven’t taken a bus in your life?”

“And then there’s the baby.”

“The baby?” 

“Well, it’ll be confusing for her if her grandparents were to – well –”

“She hasn’t even started walking yet.” Douglas is bewildered. Robina is thinking about years in the future. It is as if he had asked her to marry him. 

“And what will we tell Jan?” Robina continues, talking rapidly. “What will I tell the women at Bridge? They’ve been battering me with questions. One of the women, you see, saw us during our walk last week.”

“So, you were embarrassed of me.”

Robina resents being called a liar. “Is it such a sin to think about what others might think?” After Harold died, everyone looked at her differently. Strangers stared at her, muttering under their breath to each other, gossiping about her private life. Even people she regarded as good friends started meeting up with her less and less, until they slipped away completely. Harold’s family doesn’t even talk to her anymore bar a Christmas card. “In a utopian world, it wouldn’t matter what people think, but in the real world thoughts turn into actions. People talk.”

“And I don't know about how people talk?” Douglas replies. It’s not like he's ever been called a madman in the street or been turned away from jobs because of it.

“Don’t you raise your voice at me.” Robina's eyes burn. She turns for the door. “Goodbye Douglas.” 

It is only when she is back home, within the privacy of her room, that she lets herself cry. 

  
-

  
She doesn’t see Douglas for three weeks. She misses him, in a practical sense, at first. Gregor accepts her invitation for tea and comes round, but she struggles with what to say to him. Douglas would know what to say. Gregor only has a smattering of English and for most of the afternoon he and Jan converse in Polish. It is especially awkward when Gregor thanks her just before he leaves. He is grateful to her for taking care of Jan all these months. She tells him that many women, up and down, the country have taken in children. She is not unique.

A few days later the conversation takes on a new significance. She receives a short letter, presumably translated by a friend of Gregor’s. Gregor is happy Jan lives in a nice house in England. He could not give Jan such a nice house. He is going back to Europe, to find his family and fight Hitler. 

When Robina shows Jan the letter, he is distraught. He sobs and curls in on himself. Robina lets him lie in bed, even though it is only the afternoon and she brings him hot milk. She doesn’t know that his mother brought him hot milk when he was sad. 

“You are not my mother,” he huffs. “I want my mother. I want Kasia and Grzegorz. I want to go home.” 

Robina doesn’t know what to do but leave him be, so she exits Jan’s room and closes the door behind her. Goldie lies on the landing, at the top of the stairs, with a glum expression on her face. “Do you want to go home as well?” Robina asks her. 

  
-

  
Jan has been cycling to Douglas’s every Sunday. When he returns from his last visit, he seems brighter. He talks about Tom’s wedding. Apparently, the invitation is still open. Robina can’t think of a worse thing to attend, but if she stopped Jan from going how would it look? It would look cowardly and selfish to make Jan miss out just so she could avoid Douglas. So, she finds a summer dress she hasn’t worn in a while, washes and irons it to perfection and tells Jan to dress in his best clothes. 

When they arrive outside the church, the feelings of panic she had tried to suppress rise to the surface.. She may have indulged in a dab of rebellion recently by wearing trousers, but this is a wedding in a church. Women do not wear trousers to a wedding in a church. She is wearing a plain green dress with a high collar and a skirt that skims the scar on the back of her leg. From the moment she is amongst the other guests she can feel their eyes hot on her back. 

They must wonder why she is here. She has no apparent relation to the Bennetts – the connection they share is a strict secret – and she’s a middle-class widow with a polish boy at her side. Robina looks for Douglas in the crowd. When she can’t find him a strange a mix of relief and disappointment washes over her. 

Tom, dressed in a suit and tie, ready for his wedding, comes up to her and Jan. He shakes Jan’s hand playfully. 

Tom turns to Robina. “Hey, Sugar, are you rationed?”

Robina is taken aback. “I beg your pardon?” She feels as if she has stepped onto another planet.

“You’ve rationed my dad,” Tom continues. “He’s never home. He’s always round yours.”

“What has sugar rationing got to with that? Robina asks. 

“He’s over there, by the way,” Tom says with a smirk, before leaving Robina in a state of utter bafflement. Did Tom just compare her to a bag of sugar? 

Robina shakes her head and goes to find Douglas. She pauses, however, when she sees him laughing with a woman. They are standing very close. Her hand is on his shoulder, brushing the fabric of his suit jacket. The woman is in her fifties, blonde, curvaceous and has a high, braying laugh as natural as her hair colour. 

Someone makes an announcement for the guests to go in the church. Robina watches the woman and Douglas walk in together. The woman sits on the bride’s side and Robina gleans that she is the mother of the bride.

As the wedding starts, Robina thinks back to when she married Harold over forty years ago. She does not believe the dead are up in the sky somewhere looking down on the living, but as she stares through the stained-glass windows she wonders what Harold would think of her now if he could see her. 

  
-

  
The wedding party spills out the church. Jan leaves too, eager to find Douglas, but Robina lingers in the church. She does not like walking through crowds. When she steps outside the church and into the sunlight, she nearly jumps out her skin.

Douglas has been waiting for her. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Douglas says. “Just thought I should say hello.”

“Hello,” Robina says, forcing an unsure smile. “It was a lovely ceremony. You must be very proud.”

“I am,” he says. 

After three weeks apart from each other, the air is thick with all the words they want to say to each other, but don’t know how. 

A woman calls Douglas’s name. “Douglas, photos!” The voice belongs to the mother-of-the-bride. Robina looks at her again. Her blonde hair. Her perfect legs. 

Douglas gives the woman a small wave of acknowledgment, before turning back to Robina. 

“It appears you’ve caught the eye of the bride’s mother," Robina says. “I saw her flirting with you earlier.”

“Frances? We weren’t – she wasn’t – We were only chatting.” 

Robina’s noses scrunches up. She’s positive Frances did not see it as only chatting. 

“The reception’s at the house, if you want to come?”

Robina takes a moment to reply. “There’s something I need to do, but I’m sure Jan would love to go back to the house. I can pick him up later.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” 

Frances calls Douglas again. They are taking the photos and they need him. Now.

“You’re wrong. She does like you,” Robina tells Douglas before she turns to leave. “You’re an easy man to like.”

Douglas watches her walk away. “Robina,” he calls after her, but his voice is too quiet for her to hear.

  
-

  
When Robina arrives at Douglas’s house to pick Jan up, Lois answers the door. Robina expects to hear the voices of the other wedding guests, but the house is quiet. 

“Is the party over?” Robina asks.

“Sort of,” Lois says. “A lot have gone up the pub and Jan’s playing with my cousins in the alley at the back.”

Robina follows Lois into the house. Douglas is in the kitchen, holding his granddaughter to his chest. As Robina watches Douglas step side to side and dance with his granddaughter, it reminds her that she was right. Her and Douglas are very different people. 

She doesn’t feel things as strongly as Douglas does. There’s always been a part of her that’s been . . . deficient. 

Douglas passes the baby to Lois and Lois goes upstairs to put her to bed. “I didn’t know you could dance,” Robina jokes to Douglas. 

“Only when the occasion calls for it,” he says. 

He makes some tea and they sit opposite each other at the kitchen table. 

Robina puts her hand flat on the table, fingers splayed, as if she is going to reach for Douglas’s hand. “I – ” She curls her fingers up tight. Douglas had showed great courage in admitting how he felt towards her that day in June. She needs to be as equally brave. Still, she can’t look at him. Her eyes fall shut for a moment as she confesses to him.

“I don’t know how to do this. I didn’t imagine –”

There is the sound of floorboards creaking above them. Lois moving around upstairs. She’ll be back down soon. Robina only has a minute or two alone with Douglas. She wants to gather Jan up and make her excuses and leave, do another flit, as Douglas terms it, but she forces herself to continue. “Would you like to go out somewhere with me? Next week, perhaps. Without Jan?”

Douglas agrees within a heartbeat. 

After they agree on a time and place, Robina stands up. “I should take Jan home. It’s been a long day for him.” For once, she hasn’t touched her tea. “See you Saturday?”

“See you Saturday," Douglas replies. 

This time when Robina turns to leave Douglas calls her name loud enough for her to hear. “Robina,” he finally says, “your dress . . . you . . . you look lovely.” 

She smiles. For days, her smile is the only thing Douglas can think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Hey Sugar, are you rationed?” Was an actual pick-up line in the 1940s. It means are you rationed like sugar, are you taken by someone.
> 
> I found it hilarious.


	9. July 1941 - September 1941

When Douglas calls, Robina is playing a few tentative notes on the piano. It's been a long time since she touched the keys. She wonders how well she remembers the songs she learnt as a young woman. She closes the piano lid and goes to greet Douglas. Even though Robina doesn't lock the door during the day, he still waits for Jan or her to let him in.

"Could we go for the walk first and then go for tea?" Robina asks Douglas. A tearoom won't afford them privacy. Robina wants to discuss private matters. She doesn't want to put off the conversation any longer. It is time she faced things head-on. 

She walks with Douglas to a local park. They sit together on a bench.

"How often do you visit your wife's grave?" She asks him. It is the last question he expects, but he knows Robina values honesty. 

"Her birthday, Christmas, sometimes our wedding anniversary," he says. 

"After the wedding, I went to Harold's grave."

When she got to the graveyard, she couldn't bring herself to walk the last few steps to Harold's headstone. So she went and sat in the church. At least she was there, close by, for the first time in over a decade. 

"Why did you go?" Douglas asks her. Is Harold the reason why she did a flit? Is she scared of being unfaithful to his memory? A few months after Mavis passed, Douglas went to the cinema with a woman. It felt strange. It felt as if he was committing a crime. He tells Robina about the experience.

She understands why he felt that way, but Mavis died of TB. She didn't choose to die. Harold did. Robina doesn't owe him anything. Not when _he_ left _her_. He left her to raise Harry, the child he had longed for and pressurised her to have, all on her own. 

As Harry grew up, he began asking questions about his father's death. Robina didn't let Harry attend the funeral - something he's never forgiven her for - and she hid the truth from him. Harold died when Harry was at school. Whilst a police officer questioned a numb Robina, a friend of the family picked Harry up and took him to stay at theirs. Robina told Harry his father had had an accident. 

Terrified Harry would inherit his father's weakness, she avoided all talk of Harold. But Harry became persistent in his questions. He couldn't understand why his mother never visited his father's grave. "Why won't you let me go? You never care." He had shouted at her once. 

"He never cared for us," she had shouted back. That day, Harry learnt the truth about his father's day. He didn't speak to her for a whole week. 

A young couple pass the bench Robina and Douglas are sat on. Robina realises that she doesn't owe her husband anything. But she owes Douglas an explanation for their argument at the start of July. 

"I didn't do a 'flit' because you drive buses, Douglas," she says. "You . . . caught me by surprise. After Harold died, I had to adjust to a new life. I never expected to meet another man . . . any man."

She watches the young couple walk off into the distance, hand in hand. It is different for them. It was different for Harry and Lois. Harry was a clever, young man with a bright future. He had to make the right choices, marry someone who was a proper match - like Robina's parents had encouraged her to do. But she and Douglas have married and had their children. Now, they are old and widowed. They know there are no bright futures. Their pasts are full of black. 

Douglas calls Robina's name, drawing her attention away from the young couple. His voice is soft. "What is it that you want?"

No one's ever asked her that before. Like always, Douglas's eyes are earnest and imploring, but she doesn't shrink away. She holds his gaze. 

"I want to keep spending time with you," she says. 

Douglas doesn't know if she means as friends or more, until she moves her hand close to his. Her touch is light and questioning, her fingertips skimming his skin. He joins their hands together, but it is she who tightens the grip, curling her fingers around his.

They only hold hands for a moment. Robina lets go when a stranger walks close by. But Douglas doesn't mind. He understands. He knows Robina is a private person. He knows she is scared. He is too. 

"I have to warn you," he says. "I might be a bit out of practice. It's been a while since I courted a girl."

"It's been a while since someone's called me a girl," Robina says, amused. She smiles and the lines at the corner of her eyes crease up. 

\- 

The rest the of summer passes quickly. They go on more walks and to more tearooms. Robina doesn't want to frequent the same place too many times, in case of gossip. When Douglas realises what she’s doing, he doesn’t bring it up. She may not always want to meet up in the same place, but she always wants to meet up.

At the end of August, they take Jan to a fair. Douglas walks back home with them. Tired from countless rides on the swingboats and helter-skelter, Jan goes straight to bed. Douglas lingers at the door to bid Robina goodnight. A cool dusk is falling, making Robina shiver.

She thinks he is about to ask if he can kiss her again. Before he can, she takes his hand and squeezes it and says goodnight. Immediately, she regrets the ridiculous attempt at a parting gesture. But then Douglas brings her hand to his lips and kisses it and she must grapple with a dozen other emotions. 

After Douglas leaves, she feels dazed and sits down at the piano. She is about to strike a note when she remembers Jan is asleep.

The next day, she returns to the piano and plays all the songs she can remember. 

-

In September, the last of the good weather disappears.

Douglas and Robina go out for a walk. The morning is sunny and promising, but in the afternoon the heavens open without warning. One minute, Robina pops into a store to buy some sheet music. The next, she steps onto the street to join Douglas and she must shove the sheet music in her handbag. It is raining, thick and fast. Neither of them have coats or umbrellas. 

"You were right," she later concedes to Douglas when they are back at her house, "we should have caught the bus." She catches sight of herself in the mirror. She looks a fright. She takes off her yellow cardigan, dark and heavy with rain and unpins her hat to find her hair askew. The curls at the back are falling out and the one at the crown of her head is flat. 

She hangs up her cardigan and hat up and takes Douglas's jacket from him. When she turns back to him, he reaches up to slide back the flat curl with his hand. For a moment, his hand comes to rest on her cheek and Robina can feel his palm brush her lip. Then the touch disappears, but Robina can still feel it burning her skin. 

She leans forward towards Douglas. Their lips brush. There is a knock on the door. Goldie starts barking and runs from the living room to the door. 

The postman calls out. "I have a telegram for you. Mrs Chase?"

-

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay with you?" Douglas asks Robina. Robina sits at the table. Her posture is tense and stiff. Her eyes are focused on the unopened telegram that lies in front of her. Douglas tells her that he'll wait in the other room. 

A minute later, when he hears her sob, he has to resist every instinct in him to return to her. But he can't help call her name. 

She calls back. "It's not him. It's not Harry."

Robina's sister-in-law, Beatrice, sent the telegram. Her husband is dead. The telegram is an invite to the funeral in Bristol. The following week, Jan stays with Douglas for the night and Robina catches a train south. 

As the carriage rattles along, all she can think about is the almost kiss in the hallway. She tries not to. Shame begins to claw away at her. 

\- 

She is still dressed in black head-to-toe when she collects Jan from Douglas's. "Can we talk?" She asks Douglas. 

When Jan goes outside to play and they are alone in the kitchen, Douglas takes her hand and squeezes it in comfort. A funeral is always a difficult thing to attend. Robina savours the touch of his hand. It will likely be the last time he wants to hold her hand. 

"How was it?" He asks.

"Cold. Silent," she says. Hardly anyone talked to her, but that was what she had expected. "What are we doing Douglas? Behaving like foolish young sweethearts? Having picnics together and going to fairs? Your son is fighting. Your nephew is dead. My brother-in-law is dead. Harry is missing."

"We can still going on living through Robina. We -"

Robina cuts him off. "Beatrice blames me for Harold." 

"She shouldn't. No one's to blame. Alright, perhaps Haig, but certainly not you, Robina. It's unfair."

"It's not." Robina shakes her head, tries to blink away tears. "Beatrice was hysterical at Harold’s funeral. She had to be taken away. But not before she told me what she thought of me. She and Harold were twins, you see, extremely close." A knot forms in Robina's throat. She rubs her hand there. "The truth is, I didn't understand my husband. I knew he was ill. I knew he needed help, but I didn't know how to help him."

"Robina, it wasn't your fault," Douglas says again, but Robina doesn't pay his words any attention.

"He told me. He told me, again and again, for months that he wanted to die. He'd drink too much and he'd cry and he'd yell and go on about it. I didn't think he would do it. But when he did, when the drinking and the crying and the yelling stopped, I felt this horrible sense of relief."

Douglas takes a long time to reply. When he does, his face is unreadable and his tone empty. "I’d like you to leave." 

-

Douglas wasn't sure of what he would say, but he knew he would regret it. Her words had brought back difficult memories. He remembered when he had felt as hopeless as Harold. Like he was stuck down a pit and the only way out had collapsed. Instead of drinking and yelling, he had receded into himself. He lost all sense of time, spent entire days staring into space, trapped in his own head. For months, Mavis worked, ran the house and raised Harry and Lois on his own. He was useless. And that guilt, to this day, remains with him.

Does Robina feel guilty as well? Is that why she told him what she did? He keeps thinking over their conversation. At the start, she had questioned what they were doing together. Behaving like foolish young sweethearts when they was a war on. Did she feel guilty for being happy? Did she went to break off their courtship?

After he had kissed on the cheek, she had fled and felt him standing on her doorstep. The next time they met, she had tried to push him away. Maybe she had done the same after their brief kiss in the hallway.

When Sunday comes, he cycles to her house. He knocks at the door. No one answers. He remembers that Jan is at a schoolfriend’s house. He debates what to do. Robina would not be petty enough to ignore him. If she was angry, she would open the door and tell him, straight-out, to leave and never come back. Worry strikes him. What if there is a reason she is not coming to the door? What if something is wrong?

He decides to open the door and to see if she's okay. And then if she asks him to leave, he will. When he steps inside the house, he doesn't expect to hear her playing the piano and singing. She doesn't see him at first as he stands in the living room doorway. She is too enraptured in the music, but it feels impolite to watch her when she doesn't know he is there. So he knocks on the open door to alert her.

She stops playing the piano as soon as she sees him.

"You have a good voice," he says. More than good. He could listen to it for hours, he's sure.

"I'm sorry . . . for telling you about Harold. Well, for telling it you in that way,” she says.

"You can tell me anything,” he says.

She is still sat at the piano. He moves to stand behind her, puts his hands lightly on her shoulders. She reaches up to hold one of them. He drops a kiss on her head. She smells of lavender again.


	10. December 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a final clarification, but the characters thoughts throughout this story do not necessarily match my own, especially in terms of how Robina views mental health (and also her politics in general!). I wanted to explore how she is a product of her time and upbringing.

On the 22nd of December, Douglas arrives at Robina's house. He is meet with a cold welcome. Robina looks him up and down with a frustrated huff.

"You're late," she says. "I needed you ten minutes ago."

Her pretence quickly dissolves. Once he is inside the house, she kisses him on the cheek and takes his coat and hat. She hands him a box of Christmas decorations. She and Jan have already decorated the Christmas tree. Neither of them are tall enough, however, to hang the Christmas garlands high up on the wall. That is now Douglas's task. 

"I thought you were going to wait until Christmas Eve to put everything up," Douglas tells Robina. 

"I was," she replies. "But this young man here can be very persistent."

Jan looks both guilty and proud of his success. 

"I came round to check if we're still on for Christmas day?" Douglas says. 

"Why would we be off?" Robina replies. A couple of weeks ago Douglas invited her and Jan around his house for Christmas dinner. This time she said yes. 

"I also came to give you these." Douglas takes two cards out of his satchel. He gives one to Jan and one to Robina. 

"That reminds me." Robina hands Douglas a garland, motions towards a wall and heads up stairs to fetch something. She returns with two cards - one for Lois and the baby, one for Douglas. She also returns with a brown paper package. It contains a brand new pair of gloves. Robina had stood in the shop, debating for the purchase for a long time. If the snow comes again next year, she can't lend Douglas a pair of gloves again. He deserves more than Harold's old clothes.

"It's only a small thing," Robina says as she hands Douglas the gift. "And you can't open it until Thursday." 

On Christmas eve, she opens the card Douglas gave her. The card has a picture of two robins on. She smiles. The message is brief inside. _To Robina, Merry Christmas, All my love, Douglas._

Robina stares at the last four words for some time. _All my love, Douglas._ It's just an expression, she tells herself. It's just what people write in cards. That night, before she goes to sleep, she looks at the red suit hanging up on her wardrobe door. Tomorrow's outfit. 

However tomorrow goes it will certainly be an improvement on last year. 

-

"It matches your clothes," Douglas says when he gives Robina her Christmas present. It's a jar of home-made strawberry jam.

"How very sweet," Robina replies. Sarcasm glints in her voice, but she is genuinely touched by the gift. At her age, Christmas gifts are a rarity. 

"Your present is in there," Douglas tells Jan. Jan dashes off into the other room, leaving him and Robina alone in the kitchen.

"What did you get him?" Robina asks Douglas. 

"A jigsaw."

"He's a dab hand at them now. He'll finish it by the time dinner's ready." Robina insists on helping Douglas prepare the Christmas dinner, despite his protests. "I thought you supported women's rights, Douglas. Believed that we are the equals of men?"

"I do," he says. 

"So let me share half of the cooking."

He relents and she sits down at the kitchen table. She peels potatoes and carrots, then gives them to Douglas for him to chop and put in the pot on the stove. He has already prepared the rabbit. When the stew is boiling, he fetches the fruitcake. 

"I couldn't get any eggs," he says. "But I think it turned out alright." 

"Je jugerai par moi-même," she says and steps closer to inspect the cake, which in turn brings her closer to Douglas. 

“You are kidding me,” Lois exclaims from the kitchen door. Douglas and Robina step back from each other at lightning speed. Lois carries her daughter in her arms. Shock covers her face. “Tom told me something was going on between you too. But I didn’t believe him.”

“Lois . . .” Douglas struggles for words. “Robina and I . . . we’re . . .”

“We’re courting," Robina says. She surprises her self by making the clarification.

“She’s who you replace Mum with?" Lois scoffs. She remembers how Robina had, repeatedly, made it clear that Lois was not suitable for her son. Of course, it is always one rule for rich people and one rule for the poor. "She'll never see you as anything more than the father of a factory girl, you know that Dad. She’s a snob."

“ _She_ is stood right here," Robina says. 

"Lois, I think we should talk," Douglas says.

Robina takes his words as an opportunity to promptly leave the kitchen and go and help Jan with his jigsaw. 

After Lois and Douglas talk, Lois goes to talk to Robina. Their conversation is short. Robina can tell Lois is still not best pleased with her and Douglas's relationship. Robina doesn't really see how it's any of her business. 

"I had a long train journey," Lois says as way of explanation for her reaction. She doesn't sound very apologetic. 

"Yes, I can see they don't agree with you," Robina says. From the kitchen, Douglas announces that dinner is ready. "But let's not spoil Christmas dinner, for Jan and Douglas's sake." 

-

By the 31th of December, the temperature has dropped and winter is settling in for a long stay. Douglas and Robina are sat on the sofa together, side by side, close but not touching. They each sip a small glass of sherry, a farewell gesture to 1941. It is dark outside. The fire roars bright. The heat makes Robina sleepy and she is starting to nod off. 

When Douglas notices, he whispers her name. 

“Mmm?” She opens her eyes and blinks sleepily. She was not falling asleep. She was merely resting her eyes.

"You were falling asleep," Douglas says matter-of-fact, never one to tell a lie. He takes her hand and Robina interlocks their fingers together. Douglas stills feel a slight disbelief whenever she does that. He still feels a slight disbelief whenever he remembers they are courting. This year sometimes feels like a dream. At the beginning of January, he would never have predicted it would end like this. The war still rages on, his boy is still fighting and the future is uncertain, but there is one thing he knows for sure. 

“I love you,” he tells Robina. His voice is steadier than he feels. “You don't have to say anything back.”

She looks at him as if he has just spoken in a foreign language. There is an element of skepticism in her look, quickly replaced by uncertainty. Despite what he said, she feels like she should say something, anything back, but her throat feels dry. She feels extremely incompetent to handle the situation. She can see Douglas waiting for some sort of response. He has a rugged face, one weathered by all he has seen and survived through, but his eyes are always kind and patient. Robina’s eyes fall to his lips. Curiosity surges through her. She cups his cheek with her hand, tilts her head and leans in close to him until their noses are touching. The first kiss is brief and tentative, but it makes her heart flutter. The second is slower. He can taste the sherry she drank earlier on her soft lips. His fingertips just start brushing through her hair when the grandfather clock chimes.

They break apart. As each hour chimes, the silence between them grows awkward. "It’s getting late," she announces, for want of something to say. She finishes the last of her sherry. "We should go to bed." She says the words without thinking and immediately regrets them. "I mean . . . there's more than enough spare rooms and it's too late for you to travel at this hour." Robina stands up and steps forward, so she doesn't have to look Douglas in the eye. Over the past few weeks, Robina has increasingly thought about that . . . inevitable direction. She had thought about whether Douglas might start feeling impatient with her. Men, after all, have greater desires than women. Robina turns back around to face Douglas. She takes a breath.

"Would you like to come to bed with me?" She asks. 

“What? Now?” Douglas replies, stunned.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Without another word, Robina heads upstairs to her bedroom and waits for him to follow her. As she takes her shoes off, she refuses to feel anxious. Harold was always quick. And she never fully undressed. She was younger than. Unscarred. She doesn't have to fully undress for Douglas. It's not as if the act necessitates the removal of every piece of clothing. Harold was the only man she had ever slept with. After he returned from the war, he didn't want it as much. She was grateful when the change came early. It meant no more children. At least that's definitely no longer on the cards.

When Douglas appears in her room, her heart quickens. Every worry she has flashes through her mind. He walks over to her, closing the distance between them until their lips are a fraction of an inch apart. His breath is warm on her face. Their hands hover by their sides, unsure, hesitant to make the next move. Their fingers brush. And that touch provides the spark.

She rises up to wrap her arms around his neck and his hands slip around her small waist. As they kiss, she begins to feel dizzy with emotion, struggling to process every new sensation. Anticipation mixes with anxiety. Fear mixes with desire.

It’s not like you don’t know the next step, she tells herself. She guides him towards the bed. And then he is on top of her, kissing her and the feel of him on top of her, and the fervour of his kisses makes a deep heat flare at the base of her spine.

He draws back from her lips to drink in the sight of her. Her smudged red lipstick. The dark blue of her eyes in the dim light. Self-consciously, she wonders how must she look, hair dishevelled and skin flushed.

He places a kiss on the delicate lines around her left eye, peppers a line of kisses along the curve of her jawbone, before his lips fasten at her neck. Her heart pounds rapidly. The desire and fear collides into one hot, sickly, overwhelming wave of emotion.

He must sense something, because he stops and looks into her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

Panic overtakes her. “Well, we might as well get it over and done with,” she says breathlessly. The words slip out of her mouth before she can take them back. Douglas's expression changes in an instant. Why? Why did she say that? Robina knows she's ruined everything. When he sits up and turns away from her, she decides she wants him to leave. She sits up against the headboard. She pulls the collar of her blouse tight around her throat.

When Douglas finally speaks, there doesn't seem to be anger in his voice. "Sex isn't a chore, Robina," he says. He turns his head to look at her. "Do you want sex? Do you like sex?"

“I’d like this conversation to not go into any greater detail than it already has," she replies. 

That's the problem, he thinks. "We should go to bed. Separately," he says, before leaning over to kiss her forehead. 

"The guest room is the second on the left," she says as he leaves. Her voice comes out so quiet she doubts he heard it. 

After he's gone, she feels a horrible, embarrassing urge to cry. 

-

The next day, Douglas gets up early to make breakfast. When Jan wakes he is surprised to find Douglas in the kitchen. Douglas tells him that he went fishing in the early hours of the morning at a nearby pond. He came here so early because he was already in the area.

They eat breakfast together in companionable silence. The morning stretches on and Robina doesn't join them.

"Do you think Robina is ill again?" Jan asks Douglas. 

"I don't think so, son," Douglas replies. "But I can go and check?"

He goes upstairs and knocks on Robina's door. Behind the door, Robina is sat at her dressing table. She is dressed and has been awake for sometime, listening to the sounds of Douglas and Jan downstairs. She knows Douglas will worry if she doesn't answer soon, so she braces herself and opens the door. 

"You're still here," she observes. Half of her had hoped he would be gone by morning. 

"You know, we don't have to rush and skip all the way from the first scene to the final act in one night," Douglas says. “We can wait." 

When Robina realises what he is talking about she feels her cheeks flame. After last night, she had thought she had exhausted the ability to feel embarrassed, but evidently not. She fixes her eyes on the floor. She hardly registers Douglas telling her that he'll go if she likes before he's at the end of the corridor.

She steps out of her room and calls after him. "Douglas, thank you." He pauses and turns back to look at her. Robina twists her hands nervously together. "And about what you said . . . when we on the sofa . . . I . . ." She trails off, not yet able to finish the sentence. 

"I know," he says with a gentle smile. He understands. "By the way, I just made some tea if you'd like some."

It would be a terrible waste to let it go cold, she thinks. She joins him at the top of the stairs. They go down to breakfast together. 


	11. July 1942

It surprises Robina - the way it grows from a simple curiosity to a desire, almost a need. Maybe it's all those dark nights sitting beside Douglas on the sofa. Sometimes, when they're not sat side by side, but opposite each other, looking directly at each other, she feels even closer to him.

The winter is bitter. She always has a fireplace lit in the house somewhere. When she was a young, frugal housewife she would have called the fires a frivolity. She would have endured the cold. But Herr Hitler might bomb her entire street to ruins by tomorrow, and then there will be no more houses, and no more fireplaces, so one better make use of what one had whilst one still could.

She's never been a woman prone to impulse before. And she supposes what happens that July night isn't truly an act of impulse. As winter melts into spring, there seems to be an exponential relationship between the number of Douglas's visits and the number of her times her clothes and hair are left in a state of dishevelment. 

She enjoys it - the kissing. Quite a bit more than she expected. 

However, lately, it's been . . . vexing her, in certain ways. 

One hot Sunday in July, she's reading a book on the sofa. She's sat sideways with her legs outstretched. Douglas comes to sit beside her. When she turns and moves her legs to sit properly so he can sit down, he takes her legs and puts them on his lap. She is wearing a pleated skirt and the touch on her bare calves makes her give him a long, questioning look over the top of her reading glasses. 

She doesn’t say anything, however.

She returns to the page she is reading. Turns on to another. She feels his finger run over the skin of her ankle above the strap of her heels. She feels the strap press down against her skin when he slips the buckle free, feels the pressure and release. He takes off both of her shoes. His finger skate up her right calve, stop where the hemline of her skirt has ridden up to her knee. By now, she has lost concentration on the book. His fingertips touch her left leg, lingering on the rough ridge of the scar. 

"You have lovely legs," he says. 

-

Later that night, she wonders what he would think about the rest of her body. As she sits in the bath, she realises that she's never looked at her body before, not properly, not in its complete nakedness. She washes, drains the bathwater and gets ready for bed.

She is brushing her damp hair when she hears a call from outside. She walks to the window and parts the bedroom curtain slightly. Douglas is stood on her driveway. She pulls the curtain across and opens the window. 

"I forgot my bag," he shouts up at her, apologetically. "I need it for tomorrow."

"You mean to say you haven't brought a lute and you're not here to serenade me with a love song?" Robina replies, before closing the window. She goes downstairs to open the door to Douglas. 

He sees her long black nightgown and loose hair. "I'm sorry. Were you asleep?"

"Nearly." Her tone is a straight, serious one of admonishment, but a smile plays on her lips. Even though he only left under an hour ago, she's happy to see him. 

He fetches his satchel, kisses her on the cheek. "Goodnight love," he says. 

And something about it all, the ways he's always so sweet and open and effortless with his affection towards her, the way this moment feels so feel familiar, as she's lived it a hundred times, makes her heart ache. She stops him before he can leave. 

"Wait," she says. She takes his hand. "Stay?" He puts his satchel on the floor and lets her lead him up the stairs.

As soon as the bedroom door shuts behind them, she starts kissing him. Her hands run through his hair and roam his back. His hands follow a similar path, dare to skate up the front of her nightgown and over her breasts. 

When he undoes the first couple of buttons of her nightgown, she hesitates and pulls back. She can see from his expression that he is expecting her to push him away, to say she doesn’t want to go any further, but she does. Only . . . 

“Surely, it’s not necessary to remove every piece of clothing,” she tells him. The nervous quiver of anticipation in her voice makes the words sound high and strange. 

He chuckles, thinking she’s joking, but her face instantly crumbles. He feels terrible when she steps away from him.

”Don’t, don’t . . .” She says, anger flaring in her eyes. She can bear many things, but not him laughing at her. 

“I didn’t mean - We can do whatever you feel comfortable with you, but I would like to see you. All of you. I love all of you.” 

No one loves all of someone, she thinks. And how can he be so sure, when he hasn’t even seen all of her. 

For a peculiar reason, she feels the urge to prove him wrong. 

“I’m old,” she says, flatly.

“So am I,” he counters. He already knows what she’s going to say next so he unbuttons his own shirt. His chest is marked with scars from the war.

She reaches out her fingertips trace to trace the most visible one. He’s always been so kind and gentle with her, it’s hard to imagine he’s been through the cruelty and horror of war. She realises he is the bravest person she knows.

She swallows, steps back and turns around so she is no longer facing him. She grabs the skirt of her nightgown and pulls it over her head in one clean sweep.

He’s already seen the scar on her leg, but not the patches of rough, pink scar tissue on her back.

He thinks how lucky he is that she survived all those months ago.

She stands frozen, eyes closed, arms hugging her chest for what feels like a lifetime, but it is only a few seconds before he moves to stand behind her and she can feel his breath on her skin.

“Does it still hurt?”

”Occasionally.”

He presses a line of kisses along her shoulder and feels her relax under the touch. His arms wrap around her and his hands rest on top of her hands for a moment, then she lets him take her hands away and he cups her breasts. When he sweeps his thumb across her nipples, rolls them between his fingertips, she arches her head back.

Disappointment falls over her when his hands drop away. She turns around and he lifts her chin up softly with his hand so she is looking directly at him.

”I love all of you,” he says.

Her eyes darken with lust. Kissing him hard, she pulls his shirt from his shoulders and leads them to the bed. She pulls him down on top of her. He trails a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses from her neck to her breasts, making her eyes fall shut.

They only open when his hand slips between her thighs and he strokes her, slowly, delicately.

She tenses, however, when he goes to slide a finger inside of her. She isn’t going to say anything - wants to pretend there isn’t a problem - but he stops and waits for her to say something. 

She looks at the man who tells her he loves her so openly and freely when he knows she’ll always struggle to say the expression. She knows he’s never expected anything from her but truth. And the truth is she’s never found this part particularly pleasant and she knows it will be painful.

His fingers go back to stroking her, making her relax once more and when his thumb circles the place where she is most sensitive, he feels her tense in a completely different way. He smiles and whispers a question against her flushed skin.

“Why?” She asks, genuine confusion in her voice.

“To see if you like it,” he replies.

The quickness with which she says yes surprises them both. It could be curiousity or impatience or a mixture of both, but she doesn’t have time to feel embarrassed about voicing her desire, because then his lips press a kiss to her pelvic bone and then lower and lower and she can’t think of much else beyond the desire.

As she writhes underneath him, he will never forget the sounds she makes and knows tonight is the start of an addiction to elicit them again and again. He uses one of his hands to grip her hip and the other to reach up and palm her breast.

She falls apart with a sharp groan.

He makes his way back up, kissing the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, then her abdomen, the valley between her breasts.

“Robina?” For a woman who’s always got some comment prepared, she’s remarkably quiet, but there’s a definite smile on her lips. 

”Mmm?” She replies, the sound low and long like the contented purr of a cat. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt this good in her life. She didn’t think it was possible to feel this good.

He moves off her so they are lying side to side. It’s a privilege to see her like this. She looks so different, so worry-free, so beautiful. 

Then a wickedness flashes in her eyes. Her hand drifts down. 

“What do you like?” She says, entirely in French. 

-

The next morning, Robina wakes up at dawn. Fully awake and fully dressed, she stands beside the bed and repeats Douglas's name. Her voice is gentle, but insistent. He starts to stir. When he sees her above him, make-up freshly applied and hair nearly done, he smiles. "Morning."

"Morning," she replies. When she sees that he's still half-asleep and doesn't seem to be moving any time soon from her bed, she adds, in a completely plain, even tone: "I'm afraid we cannot have sexual relations again, not until we are married."

 _That_ wakes him up.

She tries to keep a straight face, but breaks into a smile. "I'm pulling your leg, Douglas. I love you, but I do not want to marry you. Now you need to leave, quick, before Jan wakes up."

He still looks at her oddly.

"Have I got something on my blouse?" She says, not realizing what she's just said in such a factual manner.

It is the first time she's told him that she loves him.

Douglas decides to trick her. "Come here, you've got something . . ."

As soon as she is close enough, he pulls her down on top of him. Robina gives a very un-Robina-like surprised yelp. He laughs. He holds her for a second, then loosens his grip when she starts to wriggle out of it.

"I only got changed a minute ago," she reprimands him in a tone that seems to mark the start of a lengthy lecture, but she pauses, suddenly aware she is sat atop of him, straddling him, which is new and interesting to say the least. And he's looking at her in a similar way to the way he did last night when . . . 

Heat starts to creep up her back. She had never shared that type of intimacy before with anyone. Was she too . . . Her face turns a magnificent shade of red. Douglas wants to unbutton her blouse to see if the redness has spread to her chest. "Last night was great," he reassures her, which quells her insecurities, but does nothing to make her blush less. She delicately climbs off him and gathers composure. 

"Oh, and I love you too," he says. 

"You have work soon," she reminds him. Then, overwhelmed by last night's and this morning's displays of affection, Robina, in a very Robina-like way, flees downstairs to make tea. 


	12. December 1942

For most of her life, Robina preferred a strong cup of tea to an extra few minutes in bed. But her temperament has changed since the war broke out. And so she puts up a false resistance when Douglas entreats her to stay in bed. His voice is muffled with sleep, whilst hers is crisp and awake. 

"I have things to do," she protests, but she sinks back into his embrace. Outside, there is frost on the ground, heralding the onset of freezing temperatures, but the bed - and Douglas's arms - are warm. His fingers start to draw patterns on her bare arm, seemingly without purpose. 

She remembers last night. He has learnt what she likes and what drives her to the point of madness and last night he had drove her to the edge of it and back several times. She had ended up grabbing a fistful of his hair, urging his mouth to stay exactly where it was, until her legs were shaking with the intensity of her climax. She had moaned something in French; he had recognised the word as an expletive from his time in France.

Now, when she lies with her back against his front, when his hand slowly skates over the smooth fabric of her pink negligee, she grinds back against him. She wants to be closer, wants to kiss him, to look him in the eye.

She doesn't think she can bear the teasing of last night again.

"Tell me what you want," he says, fingers finally grazing her hot skin underneath the negligee. 

"You know what I want," she replies, voice low and thick, before turning around to climb on top of him and straddle him. Before she can kiss him, however, she hears the phone ring downstairs. It must be important at this hour in the morning. "This is a brief interval," she says, authoritatively, before getting up out of bed, tying her dressing gown around her waist and heading downstairs. 

When she returns, her face is pale, frozen in shock. "It was Harry," she tells Douglas. “He's been injured, but he's alive. He's coming home."

She doesn't let herself completely believe it. Harry didn't say when he would be back and she knows her son, he's not exactly a man you can count on for reliability. Instead of happiness or relief, she feels apprehension. Douglas doesn't initially understand why her mood's darkened and when they discuss whether she should tell Jan about Harry, they come close to an argument. 

"You said it yourself Jan's fond of Harry," Douglas says. "He'll want to know he's safe."

"And what if Harry changes his mind? What if he gets himself killed after deciding to gallivant back to -"

"Men don't gallivant off to war, Robina.”

"You know what I meant. I'm not giving Jan false hope. And that's final."

So, they leave it at that, but the atmosphere changes between them for the rest of the day. When he stays the night again it feels like the only reason he does is because of habit. He wakes up in the middle of night at the sound of her whimpering in distress. She jolts awake from her nightmare. Heart hammering hard, she sits up and he puts his arm around her. This is the first time she's had a nightmare in over a year, but she's been in bed with Douglas when he's had nightmares because of his shellshock. She hid how much the nightmares scared her. She never knew what to do and resorted to practicalities, fetching him a glass of water, opening a window to let in fresh air. But, this time when she wakes up in a sweat, Douglas knows exactly the right words to say to calm her. 

"We make quite the pair," she says, with a half-laugh, settling back into bed. She says his name softly into the darkness as she is about to tell him something, maybe about the dream, but she changes her mind. "It doesn't matter," she says. 

Two weeks later, Jan, Robina and Douglas are sat eating breakfast at the table when there's a knock on the door. Goldie starts barking. Jan springs out of his chair and rushes to the door, because he thinks its the postman and collecting the post is his duty. Jan squeals in excitement when he opens the door. "Harry!"

Goldie has followed Jan and she starts yapping at the stranger suspiciously. 

Robina steps into the hallway. Her son has cuts on his face and one arm in a sling, but for the first time in years he is stood in front of her. He is home. "Harry?"

"Hello Mother."

"Come and see my room," Jan begs Harry. "I've redecorated. And I made you something. I knew you'd come back."

But Harry doesn't return the child's enthusiasm, mumbles 'maybe later' and doesn't even say a word when Douglas comes into the hallway, shares a word with Robina, tells Harry that's it's good to see him and leaves. 

When Harry sits down at the breakfast table, Robina fusses over him. "Do you want something to eat? I can make you scrambled egg?"

"Just a drink," Harry answers.

Robina fills the kettle with water and turns on the hob. Jan asks her if he has to go to school. 

Harry is surprised by the apologetic tone of his mother's voice. "Yes, Jan. But I promise that you will not have to do any homework or chores when you get back. You can spend all night with Harry if you wish." 

After Jan leaves for school, takes the kettle off the hob. She fills Goldie’s bowl with fresh water. Then she sits down beside Harry and pours them both tea. 

“I thought you didn’t like dogs,” Harry says. 

"Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?" Robina asks Harry, putting her hand on top of her son's. For most of his life, Harry had wanted nothing more than for his mother to act so openly maternal like this, but his expression is blank, his voice empty.

"I'm tired," he announces. "I might go to bed."

Robina withdraws her hand. She sips her tea. "After you've slept, can I request something of you? Cheer up. For Jan's sake. The boy worships the ground you walk on. He's overjoyed to see you and you barely gave him a smile."

Harry sips his tea, silently, then gets up. He pauses in the doorway and turns back to Robina, a strange glimmer of amusement in his eyes. 

"Tell me, does Mr Bennett breakfast here often?"

The question drips in mockery and Robina refuses to answer it, but her refusal supplies the answer. Harry smirks. Robina gives him a deadly look of warning.

"I thought people like us were not meant to debase ourselves by marrying below our station," Harry says, leaving the room. 

Robina jumps to her feet and follows him into the hallway. "My situation is completely different to yours and Lois's. And don't be ridiculous," she snaps. "I haven't married Douglas." 

"Oh Mother!" Harry gasps. "Living with a man outside of wedlock. Don't worry. Mr Bennett's an honest man. If you fall with child, I'm sure -"

Robina raises her hand to slap Harry, but Harry catches it. For a moment, they are both locked like that, staring at each other like strangers. The dog jumps protectively in front of Robina, barks at Harry. He lets go of Robina’s hand. "Go to bed," she orders Harry as if he's five years old again. 

When Harry wakes up, it is afternoon and the house is empty. He watches his mother walk up the path with a cane. 

"Where did you go?" He asks her as she sets down her bag in the kitchen and takes out some vegetables. 

"Well, I assume you're staying for dinner, at least," she says, icily.

Half an hour later, Harry joins his mother in the living room. The dog is curled up in Robina’s lap and she is stroking its head. Goldie still hasn’t warmed to him yet. 

Harry sits down on the sofa opposite Robina. "What happened to your leg?" He asks her.

Robina deflects his question. "Did you decide to get up out of the right side of bed then?" She asks. "You know when you're like this you really remind me-"

Harry shakes his head in disbelief. "I'm haven't even been back a day and you've already managed to bring him up."

"Well, what do you want me to say? Tell me Harry, tell me what one is meant to say after their son's been away for two years." 

"I wasn't on holiday, you know. I was fighting. I watched friends, good friends, die. I lost . . ." Harry voice cracks, not able to admit that he lost Kasia. He found her, then he lost her again. How will he ever look Jan in the eye again?

Tears well in Harry's eyes and he drifts into silence. Robina's face softens slightly.

"The Christmas before last," she begins to explain, "I had an argument with Jan. He ran away. I went outside to look for him in the middle of an air raid. Not the cleverest decision I've made, but . . . thankfully, Jan wasn't hurt."

"How long were you in hospital?"

"Too long," Robina smiles, before her voice turns serious again. "Afterwards, I needed . . . a bit of help. Douglas visited. He's a good man."

"And you love him?" Harry asks without a hint of irony.

Robina laughs. What a very Harry kind of question! For the second time that day, the absence of her answer is the answer. 

-

She knocks on the door of Douglas’s house firmly. She wants to tell him a thousand things, that’s she’s terrified the war has turned Harry into his father, that she’s always been terrified that Harry will leave her like Harold left her, that she’s never been worried that Douglas will leave her.

But when Douglas lets her inside the house, she hugs him and simply says: “Thank you.”

“What for?” Concerned, he rubs her back, but she just holds him tightly in response.

When she draws back, she blinks tears out of her eyes and tries to compose herself. She spots flour on her jacket. Then she spots it on his shirt.

“You might as well join me in the kitchen,” Douglas says and Robina follows him. As the sun sets outside, together they make the fruitcake for Christmas.


End file.
